{"id":35752,"date":"2017-12-08T07:30:56","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T12:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=35752"},"modified":"2017-12-08T07:30:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T12:30:56","slug":"lbcf-no-163-speakerphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2017\/12\/08\/lbcf-no-163-speakerphone\/","title":{"rendered":"LBCF, No. 163: ‘Speakerphone!’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Originally posted May 9, 2008.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index<\/a>. This post is also part of the ebook collection\u00a0The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1<\/a>, available on Amazon for just $2.99. Voting for child-molesters is Bad.\u00a0Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook<\/a>, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now available.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Left Behind,<\/i>\u00a0pp. 435-437<\/b><\/p>\n

In this little section Bruce Barnes and Rayford are playing the Antichrist Game, trying to reconcile what they know about their prime suspect with the many arcane details they\u2019ve compiled in their check list. Let me briefly try to explain where such details and such check lists come from.<\/p>\n

The Bible is full of warnings not to be deceived by false prophets, false teachers or false leaders of any kind, religious or political. Read through the Bible and you will encounter, again and again, various versions of something like this:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be fooled by false leaders. They deceive people with their lies, so watch out to make sure you\u2019re not taken in by them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In many instances, the writer will use a definite generic instead of the plural, so you\u2019ll read something like this:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be fooled by the false leader. He deceives people with his lies, so watch out to make sure you\u2019re not taken in by him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here\u2019s the fun part for prophecy enthusiasts: What if that second version\u00a0doesn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0simply replace the plural with the generic? What if, instead, it actually refers to a specific, actual, singular False Leader?<\/p>\n

Let the game begin! Get a highlighter and go through the entire Bible, circling every passage that warns against this false leader. (Read carefully \u2014 he goes by many names.) Next, go back through and write down all the descriptions those warnings provide of this false leader\/teacher\/prophet \u2014 anything that might serve a clue as to this single person\u2019s singular identity. And there you have it, your very own Antichrist check list.<\/p>\n

Your final check list will likely be a bit confusing. Some warnings seem to be describing the False Leader as an Israelite. Other warnings make it clear that he is a Gentile. In the first part of Daniel the False Leader sounds like someone very much like Nebuchadnezzar, but in the later chapters of the book he sounds more like someone very much like Antiochus Epiphanes. Later still, John\u2019s Apocalypse makes him sound almost like some kind of Roman emperor. This is where the game gets tricky. We seem to be looking for a Jewish gentile who is part Babylonian, part Syrian, part Roman. Trying to reconcile all of those seemingly contradictory descriptions in one single person isn\u2019t easy, but that\u2019s how the game is played.<\/p>\n

(Note: The descriptive details in your check list may seem so irreconcilably disparate or so closely bound to the various biblical authors\u2019 distinct contexts that you may even begin to suspect that these details weren\u2019t really all intended to prophesy a single, particular False Leader. But that\u2019s just\u00a0crazy<\/i>\u00a0talk. Press on \u2014 your speculation about the identity of the Antichrist might end up being wrong, but you won\u2019t be any wronger than everyone else who\u2019s ever played this game.)<\/p>\n

Bruce and Rayford have an advantage over the rest of us when playing the Antichrist Game: They\u2019ve got a prime suspect carefully tailored by the authors to match every detail of the check list. Yet despite that, they\u2019ve still got questions, like why is the Antichrist\u00a0Romanian?<\/i>\u00a0This is the question they seek to answer here in Chapter 24:<\/p>\n

After the core-group meeting, Rayford Steele talked privately with Bruce Barnes and was updated on the meeting with Buck. \u201cI can\u2019t discuss the private matters,\u201d Bruce said \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bruce and Buck didn\u2019t really talk about any \u201cprivate matters,\u201d so I like to think that he\u2019s just saying this to give Rayford a hard time. \u201cHey you know that 30-something guy who\u2019s been seeing your freshman daughter? He and I talked yesterday. I can\u2019t discuss the\u00a0private matters<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 nudge, nudge, wink, wink \u2014 but we talked for\u00a0quite some time.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t discuss the private matters,\u201d Bruce said, \u201cbut only one thing stands in the way of my being convinced that this Carpathia guy is the Antichrist. I can\u2019t make it compute geographically. Almost every end-times writer I respect believes the Antichrist will come out of Western Europe, maybe Greece or Italy or Turkey.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Turkey, traditionally, is not regarded as part of Western Europe, what with it\u2019s being in Asia, but if we\u2019re going to have any hope of reconciling all of the things in our Antichrist check list then we can\u2019t allow ourselves to be constrained by such tired geographic conventions.<\/p>\n

Poor Rayford is just trying to keep up. If Bruce says the check list doesn\u2019t allow for an Antichristescu, then he\u2019ll play along.<\/p>\n

Rayford didn\u2019t know what to make of that. \u201cYou notice Carpathia doesn\u2019t look Romanian. Aren\u2019t they mostly dark?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Let me call Mr. Williams. He gave me a number. I wonder how much more he knows about Carpathia.\u201d Bruce dialed and put Buck on the speakerphone. \u201cRay Steele is with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Captain,\u201d Buck said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Upon reading the word \u201cspeakerphone\u201d there I half expected confetti to drop from the ceiling as a Sousa march would begin to play and top-hatted officials would arrive to commemorate this apotheosis of\u00a0Jerry Jenkins\u2019 weird fixation with telephony.<\/p>\n

\"SPEAKERPHONE!!!\"<\/a>
SPEAKERPHONE!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just doing some studying here,\u201d Bruce said, \u201cand we\u2019ve hit a snag.\u201d He told Buck what they had found and asked for more information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cStudying\u201d makes it sound like they\u2019re translating obscure prophecies from ancient tomes rescued from the library of Alexandria. What they\u2019ve actually been doing is watching CNN\u2019s replay of Nicolae\u2019s press conference and comparing his agenda to the Antichrist check list the late Rev. Billings left on his desk before he disapparated. One world government? Check. One world religion? Check. Peace treaty with Israel? Check. Babylonian\/Syrian\/Roman\/Jewish heritage? Hmmm. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he comes from a town, one of the larger university towns, called Cluj, and \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, he does? I guess I thought he was from a mountainous region, you know, because of his name.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Following the logic of the dialogue in\u00a0Left Behind<\/i>\u00a0isn\u2019t any easier than following the logic of the plot. One bumps into these Python-worthy non-sequiturs at every turn: \u201cIs the town in the mountains?\u201d \u201cNo, it\u2019s a college town.\u201d\u00a0Huh?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cHis name?\u201d Buck repeated, doodling it on his legal pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, being named after the Carpathian Mountains and all. Or does that name mean something else over there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Buck sat up straight and it hit him! Steve had been trying to tell him he worked for Stonagal and\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0Carpathia. And of course all the new U.N. delegates would feel beholden to Stonagal because he had introduced them to Carpathia. Maybe\u00a0Stonagal<\/i>\u00a0was the Antichrist! Where had\u00a0his<\/i>\u00a0lineage begun?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ambiguity of Steve\u2019s remark \u2014 \u201cmy boss moves mountains\u201d \u2014 sets up what might have been an intriguing mystery. But at this point, 436 pages into a 468-page book, it\u2019s a bit late to be introducing a new red herring. The possibility that Stonagal, rather than Carpathia, is our Big Bad is emphatically ruled out a mere 20 pages from now. Jenkins half-heartedly tries over those few pages to milk the question for suspense, but this falls flat since he\u2019s already spent so much time establishing that Nicolae is, without a doubt, the Antichrist. Readers thus aren\u2019t thinking, \u201cHey, Buck\u2019s right, it could be either one of them,\u201d but rather, \u201cPay attention Buck, you moron, it\u2019s\u00a0Nicolae.<\/i>\u201c<\/p>\n

The larger problem with the section I just quoted is that we\u2019re in the middle of a Rayford-POV section. The whole point of having Bruce and Buck\u2019s conversation on\u00a0speakerphone\u00a0(SPEAKERPHONE!<\/em><\/a>) was so that Rayford, and the reader, could hear what was being said. Yet we\u2019re also somehow able to see what Buck is doodling and to hear his unspoken thoughts. Either Jenkins has completely lost track of which character\u2019s perspective he\u2019s supposed to be writing or else Rayford has some kind of supernatural mind-reading powers. \u2026 Hey. Maybe that\u2019s it. Maybe it\u2019s not Carpathia\u00a0or<\/i>\u00a0Stonagal, maybe\u00a0Rayford<\/i>\u00a0is the Antichrist!<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Buck said, trying to concentrate, \u201cmaybe he was named after the mountains, but he was born in Cluj and his ancestry, way back, is Roman. That accounts for the blonde hair and blue eyes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then again, Nicolae\u2019s being from Cluj, in northwestern Romania, might also \u201caccount\u201d for his hair color.<\/p>\n

Bruce thanked him and asked if he would see Buck in church the next day. Rayford thought Buck sounded distracted and noncommittal. \u201cI haven\u2019t ruled it out,\u201d Buck said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Following that paragraph is another one of these:<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Indicating a shift back to Buck\u2019s perspective for the following section, which begins:<\/p>\n

Yes,<\/i>\u00a0Buck thought, hanging up.\u00a0I\u2019ll be there all right.<\/i>\u00a0He wanted every last bit of input before he went to New York to write a story that could cost him his career and maybe his life. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So immediately after reading Rayford\u2019s perception of what Buck is thinking we switch perspectives to read what Buck was\u00a0really<\/i>\u00a0thinking and find out that Rayford had it backwards. Again. This was mildly interesting the first time Jenkins did this trick, less so the next four or five times. Here it doesn\u2019t work at all because, again, Jenkins got confused and presented Buck\u2019s perspective as Rayford\u2019s.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a book editor, you should own a copy of\u00a0Left Behind<\/i>\u00a0to take along to your annual performance reviews. Just open to a random page, have your boss read it, and then remind them that\u00a0this<\/i>\u00a0is why you\u2019re worth every penny and then some.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All you need is a highlighter and a Bible and you can create your very own Antichrist check list. Your list and your speculation about the identity of the Antichrist might end up being wrong, but don’t worry — you won\u2019t be any wronger than everyone else who\u2019s ever played this game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-35752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nLBCF, No. 163: 'Speakerphone!'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"All you need is a highlighter and a Bible and you can create your very own Antichrist check list. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"LBCF, No. 163: 'Speakerphone!'","description":"All you need is a highlighter and a Bible and you can create your very own Antichrist check list. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}